Competition

The future looks good for prospective sport-utility vehicle buyers, according to a recent study from J.D. Power & Associates. Two dozen models are expected to be introduced in the next five years, and the competition for buyers should result in lower prices for consumers--and lower profit margins for dealers. The study said that the new models may not attract new SUV customers, heightening the competition among manufacturers for buyers.

If a 7-year-old can be poised, professional and irresistibly adorable at the same time, Kelly Reynaga pulled it off. With butterfly barrettes in her hair and a few teeth missing, the pint-sized mariachi player didn't look the least bit anxious performing in front of 100 people Sunday at the Festival Juvenil del Mariachi at San Fernando High School. As Kelly stood on stage with her 20-piece band, the only thing that seemed a little amiss was that her violin bow was as long as her leg.

A Lynwood High School teacher has been nominated by state schools chief Jack O'Connell to participate in the national teacher of the year competition. English teacher Alan Sitomer was selected because of a program he initiated in which he used hip-hop to engage students in the classics. He was one of five named California teachers of the year for 2007.

The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission proposed new rules to improve competition in wholesale power markets amid criticism of rising electricity costs. Average U.S. retail power prices climbed 9.3% to 8.9 cents per kilowatt-hour in 2006, the largest increase since 1981, according to the Energy Information Administration, the statistical arm of the Energy Department.

Intel Corp. may slash some prices by as much as 50% after losing market share to Advanced Micro Devices Inc., Citigroup analyst Glen Yeung said. The price cuts for dual-core desktop processor chips, scheduled for April 23 to April 30, may range from 13% to 50%, more than the 13% to 34% that Santa Clara, Calif.-based Intel had planned, Yeung said.

The Internet Corp. for Assigned Names and Numbers approved an agreement Thursday that will give it oversight of the system for registering Internet addresses and will allow more competition in this lucrative--and one-time monopoly--business. The ICANN board's approval marks the final step in ratifying an agreement that had already been signed by the Clinton administration and Network Solutions Inc.

For once, Costa Mesa High School's cheerleaders were on the other side, receiving cheers from family and friends at John Wayne Airport as they returned home from a competition in Orlando, Fla., where they earned high marks. The 15-member cheerleading squad, the Spirit Leaders, came in 18th place out of 120 high schools that competed from across the country last weekend. The girls had raised $20,000 to attend the event.

Brazil said Thursday that it will split its telephone monopoly Telecomunicacoes Brasileiras into 12 companies, paving the way to open the industry to competition and asset sales the government hopes will raise $30 billion. The government divided the telephone company, known as Telebras, into nine wireless units and three fixed-line operators. Each new company will serve a geographic region. The reorganization is to Brazil what the 1984 breakup of American Telephone & Telegraph Co.

Pacific Bell President Philip J. Quigley is about to see his California phone market thrown open to competition from the likes of AT&T, MCI and a host of other carriers anxious to steal his best customers--and he couldn't be happier. "Between expanding technology and the bias toward deregulation, competitors are in our face all the time. . . . Five years ago we decided that we wouldn't try to fight it anymore," Quigley explains.

A frail, elderly woman carefully picked her way past the cosmetics counter of the Robinsons-May department store at the Sherman Oaks Galleria on Saturday and was met by an onslaught of throbbing disco music. "What in the world is going on out there?" she muttered. It was competitive aerobics--in the eyes of some "the next big thing"--featuring driving drumbeats, buns of steel, free-flowing endorphins and 101 different ways to do a pushup to music.